I don't think it is that short sighted I think that they were trying to do everything in their power to save the league from the fall out of losing all the teams to the ACC. The problem was that the whole time people were working nominally to keep the BE together that most members were planning an exit plan as to not be the ones left holding the short end of the stick. Now the Big East needs to set back and find those willing to join that are also willing to make the investments needed, unlike Temple, to imporve the league. Adding us CUSA teams was a good move, Louisville brings a good traveling school and a top ten finish, Cincy adds another bowl team, and USF brings in Florida recruting, a nice place to visit and depth. Now we just need to add a few more either Villinova needs to upgrade Football and we add a Memphis with an added Bowl Tie in or try for the big dogs like PSU ND, or if possible the military Academies or if needed ECU, Marshall, maybe UMass if they will upgrade football.

GQPirate Wrote:I think Memphis would draw well to the game also, with a short cheap plane flight from Memphis to Charlotte.

Not to mention that Memphis-to-Charlotte by car is not too bad at all.

I've made the trip east on I-40 several times to Raleigh and beyond.

Granted, fares aren't too bad, but the drive isn't too bad, either.

USFBullSpit Wrote:The SEC would never add Memphis because Tenn would not allow this. I have been to Memphis, and it seems as if there are more Vols fans there than Tigers fans. The SEC more than likely will look towards West Virginia or North Carolina or Texas, somewhere where they can capture a new market. They already have Tenn.

We are about to become the next Miami, and I think we will be the glue that will hold the Big East together, but I do agree that we will need a 9th member soon. I know many USF fans that hate to see D-1AA teams besides FAMU on the schedule and we have played a load of D-1AA teams since joining D-1A.

Several non-scientific polls conducted by various local sports talk radio shows and TV news stations have asked the question, "Which college team do you follow?" (or some derivative of that).

Time and again the results show that Memphis, by far, ranks the highest nearing 50%. Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama, Mississippi State, Arkansas and others make up the remainder.

But with Memphis' recent football success (and its apparent continuation), it seems like more and more people are becoming Tiger fans because you see more and more Tiger gear (flags, clothing, etc) all over the metro area.

This isn't really surprising because for decades Tiger basketball has been THE program. You'd have true Tiger fans, but you'd also have the "I like ______ in football but I like the Tigers in basketball." (fill in the blank with the schools mentioned above. It's only natural that these Tiger fans will make more and more trips to the Liberty Bowl to watch the Tigers play football as we win more and more.

Quote:The last line of that link reads the the Big East TV deal will be less than the C-USA and MWC TV deals.

I am pretty certain that that is false.

Quote:I think the major variable now is time simply because its appearing that there are some stress fractures appearing that could generate instability in the short term.

Stress fractures involving the Big East or stress fractures involving the targeted schools and their affiliations?

I'm seriously concerned if the Big East is only looking at the schools you mentioned in that PM long ago. If that's the case, this league's leaders lack foresight.

Here's a quote from the link in the first post...

Quote:The Orange will not have a BE team and he stated it was rumored that the Tire/Muffler Bowl and Gator Bowl were trying to find other conferences and open bids to non-BCS schools if there is a "hot" one in the region.

Yeah right, the Gator is going to drop the Big East to 'open up bids to non-BCS schools.' That'll happen. :rolleyes:

I don't doubt that the Tire/Gator would drop us for the Big 10 or SEC, but Conference USA? Who's more attractive? UConn, WVU, Louisville, and Notre Dame or Marshall, Memphis, East Carolina, and Southern Miss?

ECU would put more butts in the seats in Charlotte than any team on your list.

Quote:ECU would put more butts in the seats in Charlotte than any team on your list.

That would require East Carolina to be bowl eligible.

Brick City Pirate Wrote:ECU would put more butts in the seats in Charlotte than any team on your list.

I doubt that East Carolina would send more fans then West Virginia or Notre Dame, or even Louisville.

I don't know, i could see ECU taking low 20's (minimum) against most ACC teams, maybe over 30 if we got a match-up against NC State or UNC. I'm not just picking that number out of thin air, the one time we played NC state in a bowl we took about 32K to atlanta and has always taken big numbers to the ECU- NCSU games played in charlotte. I believe the NC college attendance record was for a ECU vs NCSU game (it may be second now, i know UNC-State also played a game there). If our numbers weren't better than WVU's or louisville's they would be darn close.

just curious how did WVU do when they went to the Charlotte bowl a couple of years ago? What kind of numbers has the BE done since the bowl started up? This is an honest question, i honestly haven't followed the bowl too closely.

Quote:just curious how did WVU do when they went to the Charlotte bowl a couple of years ago?

According to the 2003 media guide (and my own eyes), WVU took 40k to Charlotte. But we were riding sky high at the time coming off back to back last play wins against Virginia Tech and Pitt. It would probably be closer to 30k in most years.

Quote: don't know, i could see ECU taking low 20's (minimum) against most ACC teams

And that's very good, I'm sure the Charlotte Bowl would love that, but I don't see them dropping the Big East (Louisville, Notre Dame, WVU, to a lesser extent UConn, I don't know what they took to Detroit) for a less prestigious conference with, at best, similar travel numbers. When I see a statement like that, I start to doubt the rest of the post as well.

The Gator Bowl dropping the Big East for a mid-major tie in comment destroys any remaining credibility the post had. It's pure balogna.

thanks for the info nflsucks. you guys have one helluva a fanbase. that 40k figure is awesome. i think i heard UNC did about just under 30k this year, so your number puts them to shame.

Quote:i think i heard UNC did about just under 30k this year, so your number puts them to shame.

Thanks for the compliments, but I would say UNC outsold us pretty significantly, the crowd looked 95% UNC on TV. I don't know there actual numbers though.

Stop the madness,bring in Memphis Add the Liberty Bowl and add a million televisions to the mix
The Big East needs better RPI on the gridiron and Memphis needs the BCS tie in to compete with
the SEC in recruiting.

ECU. Not Memphis.

Split, add them both and let's get on with our lives. :)

Murph1 Wrote:Split, add them both and let's get on with our lives. :)

I agree. People are talking about the 9th school, who will we add, etc. The Big East just needs to get on with the business of splitting and forming its own All-Sports conference. The BCS bid is secure, expand to 10 teams not 9. 10 teams adds depth scheduling wise to the conference. With the Big East co-sponsoring the Big 12's 12 game scheduling 10 teams give you 9 conference games. The result, you still play everybody in your conference once, lock up your schedule, and you only have to worry about 3 OOCs. The majority of the Big East teams, if not all, have at least one traditional OOC foe. So you expand to 10, play 9 conference foes, play your 1 annual OOC foe, you only have to worry about 2 OOC games. At worst you only have to play 3 OOC games. So split off, scoop up Memphis and East Carolina which add to an already nice size market that the football schools have, and build a strong conference that you control.

One knock against ECU is they don't fit the Academic profile of the Big East. The Big East tends to like Urban Grant schools. Syracuse, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and South Florida are of that mold. Or Flagship type universities, like Rutgers, West Virginia and UConn.

UMass isn't a good idea. Everyone thinks they can pull a UConn and make a transition to 1-A. UConn owns the state market for athletics. An advantage UMass doesn't have. UMass is also only an hour from UConn and doesn't really add market value to the Big East. The endowment at UMass is also mediocre. The University of Delaware makes a lot more sense with its big endowment and established fan base.

Memphis has never been very good at football and would struggle in the Big East. Memphis had a low rated recruiting class this year. I just don't think they can get the players for some reason. And the Big East doesn't recruit the Memphis area that much.

I wouldn't discount Army and Navy as being the 9th and 10th teams with the added value they bring in name recognition. They'll help sell tickets at Syracuse and Rutgers and they need help filling their stadiums.

for my buddy MHSCard

a card fan posted this on the big east board. add this to the list of "nothing we did for the conference" . folks say we have a small tv market but somebody's watching our games.

<a href='http://www.bigeast.org/fanforums/message.asp?ID=2078944' target='_blank'>http://www.bigeast.org/fanforums/message.a....asp?ID=2078944</a>

The following are the highest rated games on national TV during C-USA's 10 year period for OOC and conference football and conference basketball. If TV numbers pull people in and make the conference better, then... see for yourself.

Football

OOC School vs. C-USA School
1) Marshall vs. East Carolina (Mobile Bowl)
2) Boise State vs. UofL (Liberty Bowl)
3) Army vs. Navy
4) Miami vs. East Carolina
5) VT vs. East Carolina (Thursday Night)
6) Florida State vs. UofL (Thursday Night)
7) Alabama vs. Southern Miss (Thursday Night)
8) Tenn vs. Memphis
9) Ohio State vs. Cincy (matchup at Paul Brown Stadium)
10) South Carolina vs. East Carolina (tie)
10) Miami OH vs. UofL (Mobile Bowl) (tie)
10) Purde vs. Cincy (Labor Day game) (tie)

ECU 4 times in top 10 (3 of the top 5)
UL 3 times
Memphis 1 time

C-USA Team vs. C-USA Team
1) UofL at East Carolina (Thursday Night)
2) East Carolina at UofL (Thursday Night)
3) East Carolina at Southern Miss
4) UofL at Memphis
5) Army at East Carolina
6) Southern Miss at UAB
7) Southern Miss at East Carolina
8) Memphis at UofL
9) East Carolina at UAB
10) Army at Tulane

ECU 6 times (4 of the top 5)
UL 4 times (3 of the top 5)
Memphis 2 times

Basketball

C-USA school vs. C-USA school
1) UofL at Cincy
2) Cincy at UofL
3) UofL at East Carolina
4) Cincy at Charlotte
5) UofL at Marquette
6) Memphis at UofL
7) UofL at Charlotte
8) UAB at UofL
9) Charlotte at Cincy
10) UAB at Memphis

The ECU - UL game at 3 is the only ESPN game we have had i believe (I may be wrong)

And once again I said outside of their first couple of years. ECU did not grow in CUSA, it floundered. Facts are facts just looking at those numbers I would say that they had more to do with the fact that you played Louisville in most of the games you sited. Look like I said I am not against ECU, but facts are facts, they are not competitive right now and haven't been competitve since 2001. Money wise and fan wise they may be ok but if that is not the problem right now the problem is the Big East has to offer a better product, ECU is not producing a strong product and therefore makes it harder to sale to ESPN and the BCS as making the Big East a stronger conference. You may have rich and loyal fans, but if you can't compete with Louisville and Cincy in Basketball and football then you aren't adding to the strenght of the Big East. I know they are trying to right the ship but that is not good enough there has to be results.

Let's review Louisville Vs ECU since 2001
Basketball
Louisville has won 7
ECU has won 1 (at home)

Football
Louisville has won all 4 of 4


Cincy Vs. ECU since 2001
Basketball
Cincy has won 6 of 6

Football
Cincy has won 3
ECU has won 1

So against Louisville and Cincy in the last four years ECU has put up a 2-20 record in the major sports meanwhile against each other Louisville and Cincy have compiled this record

Louisville Vs. Cincy.
Basketball
Louisville 5
Cincy 4

Football
Louisville 3
Cincy 1

So in that case Louisville holds an 8 to 5 edge, much more competitive. That is from my perspective.

Of course if you wish I will apologize for saying the ECU gave nothing and replace that comment, with the statement that in MY OPINION it would not be a good idea to add ECU at this point to the Big East because we need strong teams and ECU has not been competitive enough to add to the total strength of the conference in recent years.

Quote:Look like I said I am not against ECU, but facts are facts, they are not competitive right now and haven't been competitve since 2001. Money wise and fan wise they may be ok but if that is not the problem right now the problem is the Big East has to offer a better product, ECU is not producing a strong product and therefore makes it harder to sale to ESPN and the BCS as making the Big East a stronger conference

--Just like to point out that Virginia Tech had a horrible football history prior to joining the BE...if you recall they weren't invited to CUSA and only found there way into our league because WVU and Don Nelhen were sympathetic to there situation

-- Unless something is going on behind the scences that we don't know about...I think Memphis is going to be the choice for #9 for a varity of reasons...but don't discount East Carolina as a #10..as you said the fan base is there and the money is there...all they need is to be put on a level playing field with UNC and NC State etc.....There is not a doubt in my mind that ECU can go back to being the #1 football school in NC if there were apart of a BCS league....again...look how quickly VT caught UVA once the Hokies had an even playing field

-- Something else that may play into ECUs favor is the fact that there AD basically said he will accept football only membership into a BCS league....if the BE scheduling/bowl problems continue...I wouldn't be suprised to see ECU come in as a football only member and the rest of the pirates sports and Memphis can come in after the split....


Jackson

Problem is jackson that if they join the BE they won't be part of a BCS league. That is all headed out the door. Additionally, the NBE is not going to split any more basketball money with any other school. even if Notre dame left they probably would not be replaced. Time to get some sort of clue.